


Run (If You Stole a Shard of Sunlight)

by couragetofight



Series: Tilted [2]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/F, Non-binary character, Slow Burn, nb!Yaz
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-16
Updated: 2018-11-16
Packaged: 2019-08-24 10:04:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16637852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/couragetofight/pseuds/couragetofight
Summary: They don’t really know how they got here. Well, that’s a lie – the TARDIS had brought them to this planet. There was some crisis or another, the Doctor, as she was wont to do, tried to take charge of the situation, and well, here they were.In which an old friend appears, and Yaz never wants to let go.





	Run (If You Stole a Shard of Sunlight)

They don’t really know how they got here. Well, that’s a lie – the TARDIS had brought them to this planet (“Lovely planet,” the Doctor had said “Absolutely amazing people.” and had continued to ramble on about how  _ accepting  _ they were, how  _ forward thinking  _ and  _ on the right side of history _ . The irony was almost too much to bear.) There was some crisis or another, the Doctor, as she was wont to do, tried to take charge of the situation, and well, here they were. Being forcibly thrown into well – Yaz is a police officer, they know what a jail cell looks like.

The door slams shut behind them with a resounding finality and Yaz can’t help but sigh. Of all the situations to manage to get into – getting stuck in a cell, without the Doctor, and with buzzing, electrified handcuffs on their wrists is not really the first one they would have chosen.

“Heya,” Someone says, and Yaz whirls around to find a distinctly human looking person in the corner. They’re shackled far more that Yaz themself, with 2 sets of cuffs around their wrists and 1 around their ankles. “Did you get on their bad side too?”

“Er – yeah… Sorry, are you human? It’s just – I haven’t really seen any humans on this planet, besides my friends.”

“Oh yeah, human, that’s me – well not exactly, but I, uh, was. Kind of, more like… a consciousness contained in sentient oil? It’s a long story… Anyways, I’m Bill, what about you?”

“Yaz, Yasmin Khan,” They pause for a long and confused moment. “Did you say you were… sentient oil?”

“Er, yep. It’s a long story, trust me. Unfortunately, they seem to have figured out how to contain it, otherwise I’d be out of here in a flash. Anyways, you and your friends are human – where from? New Earth, Salfrax, Escon…” Bill trailed off.

Yaz grimaced “You’re never gonna believe me if I tell you I’m from Earth, are you? The original one, from 2018.”

Bill gaped at them for a second. “Wait seriously? 2018? You’re time travelers then?”

“Yeah, just a bit. Friend of mine, she has this uh... ship.” And at that moment, the sinking reality of the moment suddenly comes crashing down on Yaz.

They are stuck, handcuffed in a cell, and worse, they have no clue where the Doctor is or if she’s okay. Yaz isn’t sure of a lot of things, but they know that losing the Doctor – well they don’t want to even think about losing her. Something about the possibility creates an open void in their chest, and Yaz sinks to the floor. Bill comes and sits next to them. They can’t really bring themselves to speak, and Bill seems to understand that. They sit in silence, two humans – almost humans, stuck in a cell on an alien planet. This would be the moment, they suppose, that they would cry if they were the crying sort. They don’t though, they just sit an a stony, tense silence, broken only by the sound of Yaz’s breathing and the buzzing of both of their handcuffs. Yaz cannot get the thought of the Doctor out of their head – the Doctor, brilliant and gorgeous and the one person that Yaz hadn’t even needed to tell—and she just knew, and just wanted Yaz to feel safe.

“I’m not a girl,” Yaz blurted. If they were going to spend their last hours – years? In this prison, with only one other person, then that person should know them, damned if they were going to be a bigot about it or not. “And I know that might sound crazy to you, but it’s how I’ve always felt – like I’m in the middle, or outside. My friend, she figured it out, and she was the greatest about it, but I still haven’t told these other two friends and now I’m worried you know, that I’ll die here or something and – well I sound like her now, rambling off.”

Bill chuckles slightly. “Hey, I get it. And I’ve got a girlfriend, so I’m not going to go all bigot on you. I am a girl, by the way. Very nice to meet you Yaz,” They sink back into silence, seconds turning into minutes turning into hours. Suddenly, the door bursts in, and as Yaz looks up, they have never been happier to see a person in their entire life. They fling themselves towards the Doctor, who sonics her wrists, removing the cuffs. Her arms come up around Yaz’s shoulders and Yaz lets themselves sink into the embrace. After a moment or two, though, the Doctor stiffens.

“How dare you use her face,” Her voice is unlike Yaz has ever heard it, quivering with anger and a note of something else – grief, they think. She strides past Yaz to confront Bill. “What do you want? Why—” and her voice cracks, so far from the joyous, bright Doctor the Yaz knows. “Can you not just let her rest in peace?”

“Look, I don’t know you, but this is my face, I don’t know what you’re on about,” This declaration draws a mangled cry from the Doctor, and Yaz rushes to her side.

“Doctor, what’s going on?”

Bill’s eyes go wide. “Doctor? You- you made it then, you changed?” Her stricken look is a mirror of the one on the Doctor’s face. “It is you, isn’t it?” She sighs.

The Doctor just shakes her head. “No, it can’t be you, it can’t be!” Yaz places her hand on the Doctor’s back as her voice breaks again, and unconsciously, the doctor leans into the comfort. “I—you were a cyberman, dead, or as good as. I couldn’t save you, Bill, I failed. I always fail.”

“Except you didn’t, Doctor. Heather saved me. And we saved you, and I mean – look at you now, all fresh and young and Doctor – I wouldn’t have changed it for the world… Though, I would appreciate if you could get me out of these,” Bill jangles the cuffs on her wrists. The Doctor dumbly nods, pulling out her sonic again. Her hands free, Bill pulls the Doctor into a hug. “Do you want me to get you out of here?” Bill asks. “Because I probably can, now those are off.”

The Doctor still seems to be in shock, so Yaz is the one who takes charge, agreeing to get out of there, preferably as soon as possible. Bill reaches her hand out, “Grab my hand, and hold on.”

Yaz does as they’re told and tightly wraps an arm around the Doctor, channeling all the grief that they had over nearly losing her and holding her to them. What happens next is possibly the strangest sensation that Yaz has ever experienced. They, quite suddenly, do not exist, and yet they exist everywhere at the same time. Time and space swirls around them, a thousand stars burning as a thousand more are born. Then just as suddenly as the sensation had started it was gone again, and it was just them and the Doctor, clinging to each other in the TARDIS. The Doctor slumps, and Yaz turns so their whole body is supporting the Doctor’s frame. They still don’t really know what is going on, but they’re smart, smart enough to remember the Doctor mentioning a Bill who had taught her, even though she was the teacher, and to remember the grief-stricken look that had passed like a shadow over the Doctor’s face when Yaz had asked about her family. It wasn’t too hard to put two and two together.

A second later, Bill reforms seemingly out of nothing, pulling someone else along with her. Yaz gives her a soft smile from over the Doctor’s shoulder, mouthing ‘thank you’. Bill nods and quirks her eyebrow amusedly, glancing pointedly at the position that they and the doctor are in.

“I’m sorry to interrupt, but did you say that there were others? Because we should get them out if so.”

The Doctor seems to come back to herself at the question, whirling around with her coattails spinning out around her. “Well, I told them to meet me back in the market, now if I can just set—” She runs and spins around the TARDIS console, brushing Yaz’s back and giving their arm a squeeze as she rushes past, pausing in her rambling only to give them a blindingly bright smile. They take off and re-materialize in an instant, Graham and Ryan bursting through the doors just as they do.

“I gotta say, Doc, you do have good timing,” Graham pants, bent over with his hands on his knees. Ryan makes some noise of agreement from where he’s collapsed on the TARDIS floor.

“Of course I do!” She protests. “I am an excellent pilot!” At this, Bill snorts and 4 sets of eyes dart towards her and the other person with her where they are leaning, arms around each other, on one of the crystal columns. “Hello, Heather,” the Doctor says, with inexplicable solemnity.

“Doctor,” Bill’s companion answers and inclines her head.

Bill looks between the two of them amusedly and rolls her eyes fondly. “You do not change, do you Doctor?”

The Doctor turns to busy herself around the console again. She lowers the lever and they take off, but she doesn’t turn around, just stands there, frozen. To Yaz, her grief is palpable, eyes closed and hand clenched around the handle of the lever.

“I think we both know that isn’t true, Bill,” She says softly, and Yaz reaches out to comfort her, their hand resting over the Doctor’s. Without looking, the Doctor flips her hand over and threads their fingers together, in a gesture that has become increasingly familiar in the past weeks. She squeezes their hand and shoots a small smile their way. She disentangles their hands again, turning to face Bill and Heather.

“We should be off, Doctor. People to save, you know. And staying in this form takes quite a lot of energy,” Bill cuts in before the Doctor can speak. She steps forward, reaching out to place her hand on the Doctor’s upper arm. “It was good to see you again Doctor.” 

The Doctor finally makes eye contact, and pulls a surprised Bill into a hug. “Well, I’ll admit,” Bill laughs as the Doctor pulls away again. “That is a bit of a change.” She smiles brightly at the Doctor, and reaching back to grab Heather’s hand just… disappears.

Yaz looks over to the Doctor, and while there is a sadness in her eyes, they can see that something has changed as well, that some part of the grief that they had come to get so used to in the doctor’s face has been lifted. For Graham’s part, he seems he has a lot that he wants to say, but he must see something in the Doctor’s countenance that stops him, because he just ushers Ryan down one of the corridors off the console room in the TARDIS.

Yaz doesn’t say anything once they have left. They just walk to where Bill had been standing a moment before and offer their arms. The Doctor seems happy to sink into the embrace and return it, her head resting on Yaz’s. They knew that there was a lot they had to do: talk to Graham and Ryan about everything, go back home to see their family, and do lots more running. But for now, for now they just want to hold on to the Doctor and not let go.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Thanks again to the Thasmin discord for their encouragement, and Vix for being an amazing beta!  
> And thanks to everyone who read my last nb!Yaz fic! The response absolutely blew me away, and gave me a lot of inspiration to write this one. Before I finished Actually Good, I knew that I absolutely had to explore 13 meeting Bill somehow and I hope you enjoyed. Come chat about nb!Yaz, thasmin, and any other gay stuff @couragetofight on tumblr. I'm absolutely in love with this universe now, and already have some more ideas (including a fic with a lot more Graham & Ryan!) so keep your eyes on this space.  
> Title is from Christine and the Queens


End file.
